My last 3 days in Kyiv

Well, it feels like I'm living in a new world these days: not Ukraine, not America, but rather the land of pain. The assumed culprit, per a trip to urgent care? A kidney stone. Ugh. And OUCH. Any noble goal I'd had for the rest of my life has since turned into be gone, foul vermin! or, more often, let's wait just a little longer for the next dose of Vicodin. But being housebound means no more excuses, there's plenty of time to finally tell you guys about being in Kyiv several weeks ago.

Right away I knew it'd be different than our previous trip to the capital. To start with, the ads on the fast train were for war bonds this time, not hotels and spas. Last year no one was throwing around terms like Putlir, Luganda, and Donbabwe. And Ukraine is now a place where a taxi driver will first assume you are a journalist instead of an English teacher.

Speaking of the middle-aged taxi driver, he was extra careful to avoid squishing the fresh eggs he was transporting home as he put my bag in the trunk. Just after that, his phone rang- "No Mom, I can't talk now. Really, no. I have a client. I'll call you back. Yes, soon." It was kind of cute.

We got to talking during the 30-minute trip to the hotel and he revealed that he supported Yanukovich, saying things are much worse now than they'd ever been under the old President. I questioned him about this. "Don't you think things will now improve?" "Ha!!" he barked back. "It'll be one hundred years before we recover from this!" "Oh no, definitely not a hundred years", I replied. "Well, okay then. Ninety five." was his answer.

But this opinion most definitely seemed a minority one as I traveled around Kyiv for the next few days. References to current events were everywhere and overwhelmingly in favor of a new, European-ized Ukraine. Every block had the same billboard for a construction company with the words A new country, a new apartment! printed on a blue-and-yellow background. An AK47-armed Taras Shevchenko could be made out among scrawls of graffiti on a main road. And I know I told you before that blue and yellow were popular colors but as of last month, every single thing in Kyiv seemed to have turned blue and yellow. Here's a sampling-

Photos from Kyiv Maidan

A friend has been wandering through Maidan in Kyiv this afternoon.

Snapshots of Ukrainian Life in a Chaotic April

Near the train station, April 25th

It's been two months and four days since the previous Snapshots post, and the state of things remains pretty much the same.

Often I look around and see nothing more than a beautiful and calm spring, just like last year. All the photos below are from the past 2 weeks-

Of marathons and mayham

Another uncertain weekend gone by, another Saturday and Sunday that fit the pattern:
Saturday = more or less normal, Sunday = mass protests, marches, violence.

There's something about Sundays... they've become a day to dread in eastern Ukraine. It's like Monday through Saturday people go to work and school, do the grocery shopping, live спокойно (calmly), and then Sunday comes and there's some madness in the air. It could be said that things are tense 24/7, but on Sundays people are ready for war.


Saturday @ Freedom Square:

We caught the tail end of the MTC Kharkiv International Marathon that afternoon.

Families, couples, and friends strolled through the mainly empty Freedom Square.

Newspapers in the time of Euromaidan

I'm a little confused about Euromaidan. It seems like such a long time ago... or was it? So much has happened. Is happening. Do these new events still qualify as Euromaidan? Or should they get their own title?

Months ago, people waited for things to "return to normal". Now "normal" has become an absurd thought. I should have believed Graham when he predicted that there is no more normal, there's only a new Ukraine and its birth is just as messy and traumatizing as any birth is. My heart goes out to the Ukrainians who are living through this creation of a new reality, where every day brings a new headline and students confess they're thinking about sending their wives and children away to safer places.

Help save Kharkov's zoo!

The Kharkov Zoo has always been one of my favorite places to spend an afternoon. Hidden in the heart of the city, bordered by Karazina University, Shevchenko Park, and a busy side street, this place has a certain charm that lures us back over and over again. (Or rather, it lures me and then I drag a reluctant D along with the promise of a beer.)

*Update on the zoo situation (things are looking much, much better for the animals!!): http://8monthsinukraine.blogspot.com/2014/03/kharkov-zoo-update.html*

A birthday amid the uncertainty

As you know, the news about Ukraine is full of полный мрак и ужас, total doom and gloom. It leaves me with a constant headache, like I've been breathing in fumes all day long. Yesterday we spent most of the day at home, clicking through progressively scarier and scarier articles. A student messaged me in the morning: will there be class today? This particular class meets downtown, in a building that borders Freedom Square. I checked with my colleague who would be teaching that morning: No, he texted, I'm going home. There's a strange atmosphere here. Sure enough, before long, something had happened. Meanwhile, the updates from Crimea (where D's extended family lives) just kept getting worse. He checked in with some friends and family by phone, who assured him they were all fine, at home with full pantries. Then he got a call from a co-worker in another city; I don't know what the coworker said, but after the call D immediately filled up the bathtub and all available containers with tap water.

I do want to point out one thing to you; although the media is screaming "war" right now, showing pictures of gun-toting soldiers, and fear-mongering as much as possible, here in Kharkiv- except for the area around Freedom Square- life is more or less normal.

It's not what you're seeing online.

People ride their bikes, children run around playgrounds, school is in session, transportation runs as normal, the stores are stocked with food, orange-suited sanitation workers are out keeping the streets clean, students attend my classes, taxis are everywhere, salaries are being delivered, florescent spring tulips are for sale in underground passages, our bank card works. I do believe what's happening now in this country is incredibly serious and will affect not just Ukraine but the entire world, but what is shown in the news is not everything, it's only the worst. 

On to something more cheerful; yesterday wasn't just a Saturday, it was also my birthday! Of course we had to at least get offline and out into the real world for a little bit.

Walking down Gagarin Ave, we spied on the (increeedibly slow) progress of this building. I'm not sure if construction has stopped or if they're just adding a brick a day. Anyway, I can see this place easily becoming a favorite of Star Wars fans worldwide.

This is what you'll see on Google maps if you search for "Kharkiv death star".

Ukrainians

There have been hundreds of photos taken lately that show Ukrainians dressed for war.


These are not those photos.

Kharkov

 Kyiv

Yevpatoria

Poltava

Simferopol

February 23rd demonstrations

Today was the first day I'd been to Freedom Square since it all began. We had a meeting in a restaurant that overlooked the square and, not having heard any recent warnings about the area, decided to go. Here's what we saw upon emerging from the Derzhprom metro-

3 PM

The Lenin monument, the preservation/destruction of which has become a hot topic in the past day, has now been fenced off and surrounded.

Using a loudspeaker, a man called out to the small crowd: Kharkovites, it doesn't matter which side you're on! We are here to prevent vandalism! This is why we are here! Wake up, get off your asses, and join us!

Still, the crowd was small and unstable. People approached, listened, and drifted away.

Ukrainian flags and Kharkiv city flags fluttered in the cold wind, joined by a handful of Ukrainian Socialist Party flags.


On the other side of the square, directly in front of the Regional State Administration building, was a second crowd.

People crammed themselves together on the sidewalk across the street, fronted by a line of policemen.

There will be no fascism here! roared the man on this loudspeaker. If we take the statue down, it'll be done in a lawful manner!

Kharkov Maidan

Crowds tonight at Freedom Square. Some vow to bring down the Lenin statue but allegedly a vote has postponed such action for a few days.

A lot has happened in the past 24 hours.


The President (ex-President?) of Ukraine left the capital. Reports come in periodically- Yanukovich is in Kharkov, he's headed to Russia, he's in Donetsk, he pledges to not leave the country. Meanwhile, the doors of his mansion have been thrown open and some outrageous photos are surfacing on the internet: a golden 2-kilogram loaf of bread, a toilet built like a throne, garages full of motorcycles and luxury automobiles. At the same time, the Parliament of Ukraine voted in favor of impeachment.


Yulia Timoshenko, the (until now) jailed politician, she of the blonde braids, has been freed. She's made it to Kyiv already and speaks to the crowds on Maidan.


The mayor and governor of Kharkov fled the city earlier this evening.


Thousands rose up and marched in Kharkov today. You can see it for yourself in this 30-second clip. They marched against the government, in support of the EuroMaidan movement.


I haven't heard anything so far from my friends and students who support Yanukovich. I did catch up online with a friend from the opposite side who marched with the protestors today. A great day, we won, Kate! It was like an endless unity of the nation and people. I almost cried, it was so true without any masks. Today was a crucial moment; if we didn't rise up — we lose. When I asked him what would happen next, he replied Now we must work hard to exterminate the corruption.


A live stream of the events in Kharkov can be seen here.

February 20th in Kharkov

Today I'd planned to share a post on the Vietnamese community in Kharkov, but it just doesn't seem appropriate right now.

Chaos has begun to engulf the nation.

Kharkov, which had previously been passed over by most of the violence, is now showing signs of falling into the maelstrom.

It's so hard sometimes to know what's real and what's not; people say one thing, the media says another thing, and the government might say something completely different. The truth can't always be confirmed. Sometimes you can only trust what you see and hear yourself.

It's shocking that in just 20 months, Ukraine went from Euro2012 to EuroMaidan.

From this-

2012 UEFA European Championship  picture from vk.com

to this.

The streets of Kyiv, February 2014

I don't want to spread half-cocked rumors or fear on the internet. There are other people and organizations out there with analyses and breaking news and hard facts (although whether you can trust them or not is another matter). I don't know what's going on, I only can tell you about the things that have happened yesterday and today in my little world.

We played Scrabble yesterday. One friend apologized, saying he wouldn't join us as he was taking part in a protest to prevent forces from heading to the capital. Things turned ugly, of course. He wrote later on the vk social network: I left for work half an hour before the crackdown. It was horrible - the riot police was beating the peaceful protesters up, from the other side thugs, armed with baseball bats, attacked as well. They were chasing people everywhere. Thanks God, my girlfriend and her mom were able to hide inside the metro.

Then during classes last night, another friend sent me a text: Are you okay? I heard there'd been a shooting in your part of the city.

That text made me a bit antsy about the walk home from the metro but what was more worrisome was the group of young men hanging underground near the metro doors. They were about a dozen guys, all squatted low to the ground, not talking, giving off a really bad vibe. I didn't manage to get a good look at them as they seemed incredibly hostile, like they were waiting for trouble... but willing to wait patiently for it only so long.

Although the death toll in Kyiv has continued to rise, business went on as usual in Kharkov this morning. I went off to class and heard not a whisper about any of this in the metro... but things were different after class. At both metro stations I saw long lines near the ATMs and bank windows (this was around 2 PM). The supermarket down the road now has an unusually-full parking lot. And D just emailed from work with this: I tried calling you because I've heard that something is going on with the metro. I don't know about food. I think we should get a bunch of basics such as gretchka, sugar, etc. I'll come home earlier so we can shop. I don't want you to go alone. We should go together.

As I've written this post, the online forums have started to discuss these long lines near the banks and what it could mean for the country.

Two separate emergency vehicles have gone by the apartment, sirens blaring.  

A friend near Kyiv sends a Facebook message: everything is so scary and I can hardly stop crying.


Let's just hope the darkness means dawn is coming soon. 

Troubled times

Kharkov, Jan 21st. The calm before the storm?

Jan 21st newspaper with news from Kiev.
Articles inside include "Useful Advice: How to protect yourself from gas and stray bullets".